Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of RevolutionThe great Tidewater planters of mid eighteenth century Virginia were fathers of the American Revolution. Perhaps first and foremost, they were also anxious tobacco farmers, harried by a demanding planting cycle, trans Atlantic shipping risks, and their uneasy relations with English agents. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and their contemporaries lived in a world that was dominated by questions of debt from across an ocean but also one that